On writing

Ah, Sandi. http://sandyquill.com

Last summer, I was messaging back and forth with author Sandi Layne about the pain of writing, and suddenly realizing that I was turning myself inside out in the story I had just finished, sharing so much of myself I felt quite lost.

She sent me the above message in response. It was my birthday, and what a gift.

Anyone who receives a message like this should feel heartened. Uplifted. Should feel slightly better. Because there is such truth in these few words.

But at the same time, it kind of kills you, because let me tell you, I am not a courageous woman. I have done a gazillion things in my life, mostly because I am stubborn and hardheaded and use sheer force of will to march through obstacles, but doing it just with and by courage?

Never.

Until writing happened.

Writing is probably the most courageous I have ever been, or ever have had to be. Because every time I try to cut corners and write for an audience, it falls flat on its face.

Just as, every time I try to write from the bottom of my heart, something happens and my words get wings. When I write to write.

~~~~

So much courage is needed to spill your heart out onto the blank pages of a piece of paper—or onto the screen of your computer, as it were. Nothing more daunting than that empty word document, cursor blinking in the upper left corner, waiting for you.

Even more courage is needed to later edit the living daylights out of the baby that you have birthed through pain and labor, but also through cackling glee and awesome rush of happiness.

You use your sadness. You write your anxiety. You make the reader live the drama that happened. Your strongest writing comes through, loud and clear, when you describe disaster striking. When a whole life crumbles in the chaos and madness of destruction.

When those things have happened to you, for real and in your life, you can either despair and go under, or you can USE IT in your writing. Or both. There is power in despair, when it most certainly can get no worse, it can only get better.

You have such power in your words. When you tap that specific river of personal knowledge. When you use it, and turn it around from having been something that hurt you (emotionally or physically) into something that whispers to people who are reading your words, whispers, until they themselves scream out loud—

“This is truth—this is real—OMG—I am IN THIS SCENE with the author, feeling her feelings, and seeing what she sees! I am dying, running, screaming, fainting, loving, hating, seeing, feeling utterly lost and blind. Everything. I experience everything.”

That. Is. Powerful. Magic.

There is such enormous power in that kind of writing.

To revisit your demons in writing is cathartic. You get to go there again, but you have the power now, and with millimeter-precision, you can excise the hurt. Turn the whole incident into something that YOU created, that YOU have power over, that YOU can use.

There is true greatness when, in the process, you get to take back your power.

It is how I deal with pain. I use it. Manipulate it. Force it, until it is totally mine and in a place where I can do with it as I please.

Those are powerful feels.

I know you see it. There is power to be had here. I hope you use it.

Because when you tap into that source, my friend, you get handed a pair of huge, huge wings—the kind that make you soar.

You f*cking soar.

Explicit, non-porn—On G-spots and vibrators

I got a call from the daughter of a friend the other day, and she was wondering about G-spots. We got into a long discussion, as she really wondered if it was all a hoax. (As I know her folks are okay with us talking about sex, I hold nothing back). Better I tell her, than some stupid male-porn-site informing her of her shortcomings or on how she SHOULD be/look/act. (Yes, I’m specifically thinking of this whole plastic surgery happening on labia these days, because society tells women they are too big/ugly/whatnot. Absurd).

So we had a long discussion about orgasms, the clit, and the G-spot. When you’re fifteen-sixteen years old, sometimes you don’t even know how to find your clit, so any discussion is to be considered fruitful. There was some giggling, but then we got down to the nitty-gritty facts, and there was more of “Oh, I see! That is awesome!” and “Wow, I had no idea. That sounds way cool!”

Which I find to be the right kind of attitude to sex.

Then this whole thing got me thinking about a discussion I had on twitter some time back, about vibrators and what not (Hi, ladies!), and I remember thinking that some of you probably haven’t found that elusive G-spot yet either.

So, I said to myself, why not do a post about it? Because, clearly 140 characters are not going to be enough.

I started researching, to get some back-up on what I know is true for me personally (Hey! The vagina is personal, and every single one is different from the next) and boy, there’s a lot of porn out there, but it seems to me that it is mostly directed at men and how they can get pleasure out of the female body. Not so much directed towards the female to enjoy her own body—or the body of the female next to her.

See, with men and their junk, it’s mostly okay to touch anywhere, everywhere, JUST TOUCH IT ALREADY! and he is happy. It is a lot like “touch here and here and YES YES YES YES YES RIGHT THERE AND THERE AND THERE”. Brilliant. I love that about men. Some places are more sensitive to your touch than others, but basically, ANYWHERE is good. Just touch it.

With a woman, it is a bit more complicated. It is crucial that you touch in the right spot. To continue the image from the male side, caresses often end up like this: NO NO NO YES! NO NO NO NO NO NOT THERE, FURTHER UP NO NO NO YES YES RIGHT THERE! NO NO NO NO NO NOT THERE FURTHER DOWN GAH, OH HELL, GET OFF ME. Followed by **sigh**.

What men don’t get (seeing as their pleasure-zones are so different from ours) is that once you find the right spot YOU DON’T STOP. You DON’T MOVE AWAY. You KEEP GOING. The same movement, over and over and over again.

Now, the above information, in combination with a deeper knowledge of the clitoris, is the actual key to the mystery of the female orgasm.

So here goes:

The clitoris is a huge organ. Don’t ever believe it is only that little, sweet nub you see on the outside. What you can feel on the outside is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. There’s a whole network inside that reaches far around the vagina, actually hugging it. This is where the G-spot come into the show. Because it is A PART OF THE CLITORIS. I bet they never taught you that in sex-ed, eh? It is actually considered the root of the clitoris. Well, don’t blame them, there has been frightfully little research ever done on this, and it is mostly new scientific findings. But many women have known about this for eons, so let’s get back to sharing that information, shall we?

Let’s find it!

The location of the G-spot varies, of course, just as much as what the whole female apparatus looks like can vary from one woman to the other. But generally, if you have found your clitoris, then you can find your G-spot right opposite it, but on the inside. (And, no, not all of you will need extremely long fingers to reach it, that’s just erotic literature taking you for the same kind of ride that male-centered porn does. It all depends on your vagina, in some the G-spot is further in, in some it is placed in a very near position. Search for the ridge! What ridge? Oh, keep reading, it’s up next).

Use a finger, soft pad facing upward, and slide it into your vagina. The first part is slick and totally even, soft, unruffled. Then you get to a ridge in the soft flesh, a ridge that sits right on the bone. After this ridge there are ruffles and your finger is inside the soft cavern of your vagina, no longer constricted to the shallow channel.

That first ridge? That is right where the G-spot sits. But you won’t feel anything different there, nothing, except the transversal ridge UNTIL you stimulate the clitoris (on the outside). When you do stimulate the clitoris on the outside, there is a very small point that swells up, right in that ridge—personally I call it my lady-boner. Yeah, that’s exactly what it feels like.

So, recap: stimulate outside clitoris, feel for the inside clitoris-boner happening, and keep going.

Of course, this is a lot of stimulating, and doing, and touching and what not. Frustrated, you don’t seem to have enough hands to do it all. I know, I know. This is where a vibrator comes in mighty handy. (Well, it ALWAYS comes in handy, but more so here).

(Lube up, there is so much more fun to be had with lube). (Just trust me on this one).

Set the vibrator to a steady buzz, no pulsing, you need the steady one for searching for the elusive G-spot.

Place the vibrator in your one hand and push it over your clit until you feel that the clit is starting to react.

Put your finger inside you, soft pad facing upwards as before, and feel your way to that ridge right behind the slick, soft surface. Stop there, and gently tap the ridge, around its middle. Search a little with your finger, while pushing the vibrator down on your clit, and wait for your G-spot to appear. It is right there, and it comes alive with the buzz and the tapping, and if you keep at it, in tens-of-seconds you are already coming. Hard.

It’s a kind of magic.

If you have a good relationship with your partner, you can ask him/her to go on an adventure with you. And once you teach your partner how to help you do this, s/he will totally go to town with you, because this action takes it to a whole different kind of orgasm, which makes it a whole new level of awesome just to watch you come.

Interesting links:

http://www.charlieglickman.com/2010/06/amazing-new-research-about-the-clitoris/  Very scientific, with actual ultrasound photos of the clitoris, its legs (the so called crura), the branches (ischio rami), the body itself of the clitoris, and the glans that is related to the male counterpart, the prostate (hello P-Spot!). This is actually an awesome site on a lot of deep questions about sex, turning on and off, body-shaming and more.

http://www.themarysue.com/clitoris-discovery-2009/
This site has a couple of images, taken from research done on the exited clitoris, and these MRI-pictures say more than the proverbial one thousand words. But would you look at those pictures! There is a whole little monster of a hugging-clit in there! 

Let me know if this helped you.

Book blog

This is my blog for reviewing the GOOD books that I've read, and for sharing stuff that mean something to me. Like art, food, music, flashfiction, and matters of love, sex, and relationships.

I might talk about what I'm writing myself.

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